


Mel

by shadowsamurai



Category: Waking the Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsamurai/pseuds/shadowsamurai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Epilogue for Season 4, Episodes 11 & 12, 'Shadowplay, Parts 1 & 2'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mel

**Author's Note:**

> All lyrics used belong to Snow Patrol, from their song 'Run' , but I used Leona Lewis' version, which is simply gorgeous, as the inspiration for this story.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I'm just borrowing things for a while and I promise I'll put everything back exactly how I found it when I've finished. Well, almost exactly how I found it. ;)

 

WtD-WtD-WtD-WtD-WtD-WtD

*I'll sing it one last time for you  
Then we really have to go  
You've been the only thing that's right  
In all I've done*

It had been the hardest thing Frankie had ever done; processing the scene of the murder of one of her best friends. One of her *only* friends. She knew why Boyd had asked her to do it - she was a scientist, she understood the logic behind the request - but it was something Frankie would never forgive him for. In the moment Mel's life was extinguished, the case should have been handed over to someone else, but Boyd's pride got in the way. His pride and some odd sense of duty to Mel. He knew that his team would be the only ones who would do justice to the case that had claimed Mel's life, but Frankie could no longer work in that team.

As she looked around the lab for the last time, she sighed sadly, knowing a piece of her would remain in that room no matter who followed in her footsteps. Removing her white coat and hanging it up with more care than was needed, Frankie said goodbye to the place that had been her home for the past four years, knowing she would never return to it, or the people.

And the thing that hurt Frankie the most was that she didn't say goodbye to them. She simply couldn't.

*And I can barely look at you  
But every single time I do  
I know we'll make it anywhere  
Away from here*

Grace had been suffering recurring nightmares since Mel's death; she would wake up sweating and panicking, recalling the sheer horror of seeing the young DS's body bouncing off the bonnet of the car. Grace remembered, with more detail than she wished to, how she and Boyd had sat, frozen for what seemed like an eternity as they tried to understand what had just happened. Then Boyd was moving out of the car, moving towards the body…the body that, as Grace got out of the car as well, she realised was Mel's.

But the case had to go on. Boyd insisted. Grace had watched him smother his grief with work, and she knew she was powerless to help him. He was driving everybody away with his attitude, but this time, he didn't care. Grace knew how Boyd felt; he felt as though he had let Mel down. But it wasn't his fault alone; her death wasn't his burden to bear, but something the team should have been dealing with together. Grace knew this, not just from her training as a psychologist, but from her instincts. They were a family and they needed to stick together. But Grace couldn't find the words to tell them all that; all she could see was the family coming apart at the seams, and Mel's body bouncing like a rag doll off the bonnet of the car. Mel's face, bloodied, eyes open and lifeless.

Grace would never tell anybody, but she would always suffer nightmares from that day on.

*Louder, louder  
And we'll run for our lives  
I can hardly speak, I understand  
Why you can't raise your voice to say*

Spencer wasn't a man who normally drank a great deal, but he found it was all he wanted to do. He had been trained to receive and deliver bad news, and he had done just that on countless occasions. But this was different; this was personal. But more than that, this was Mel. His partner, his best friend. They had shared so much together, so many experiences that Spencer knew he could never have had with anybody else. He knew Mel's position would be filled with a new DC or DS, but Mel was irreplaceable.

Boyd's phone call had been short, Boyd's voice emotionless. Spencer had watched as his boss sank further into a guilty depression, but instead of helping, he left Boyd to it. Spencer knew each of them would cope with the loss in their own way; not together, separate, and he knew separate they would remain. Mel was one of the links that held the team together; without her, they were nothing.

Without his best friend, Spencer was nothing. He stared into the bottom of his empty glass, half-wishing it would swallow him up, half-expecting to see Mel's face staring back. But all he saw was his own pained expression, and with a frustrated sigh, he ordered another drink.

*To think I might not see those eyes  
Makes it so hard not to cry  
And as we say our long goodbyes  
I nearly do*

Boyd had completed the case, caught the killer and locked him up. But he had no clear memory of anything after trying to ring Mel and not being able to get through. The last thing that Boyd could remember was looking down at Mel and seeing her dead eyes staring back at him. The moving image of her falling down onto his windscreen, bouncing off the bonnet and flying onto the road played in slow motion every time Boyd closed his eyes. And he saw it sometimes when his eyes were open. It was burned onto his mind, unmoving, unforgettable. He knew that the team was looking to him for guidance, for support, but all he could think about was himself. Boyd felt as though he had killed Mel himself; he knew for certain he had killed the team, but he was past caring.

Boyd had organised the funeral, but he hadn't gone. He couldn't. He had promised Mel, from the time he rescued her from a skip on their first cold case, that he would look after her. And he had failed her.

Safe in the knowledge he was alone, Boyd lowered his head into his hands and wept.

*Light up, light up  
As if you have a choice  
Even if you cannot hear my voice  
I'll be right beside you, dear*

Mel's laughter echoed around the empty squad room.

Mel's smile illuminated the dark lab.

Mel's face showed up in the reflections of the windows, but no one was around to see it.

On the evidence board, everything had been cleared, every picture and word removed except for one.

Mel.

FIN


End file.
